The Wish Before
by Shadows
Summary: Takes place during "The Wish." A short little fic that explains....hey, read the fic!


At first glance, Jeanine Traylis had thought the new girl, Anya, was just another rich, snobby, stuck-up little thing like Harmony Hunter and the rest of those high-class twits. 

That was at first glance. 

At *second* glance, Jeanine stopped dead in her tracks. In no way had she ever thought she would cross paths with the Patron Diety of Scorned Women again, not after that little episode back in Friendship, Maine. 

Jeanine had ducked back into the girls bathroom and spent a good five minutes calming herself down and thinking about what she had just seen. Anya was here for either two reasons, and only one reason she liked--Anya was here to grant another scorned woman one of her wishes. But who was that woman? Certainly not her. Jeanine was has happy as could be. 

Months ago, in her home reality, a man named Mark Craiven had cornered her at the local club, Silver Fire, the place where all the popular students hung. He had totally freaked her out, saying that she was "the Slayer, the Chosen One, one girl in all the world who was born with the power and strength to defeat the vampires and stop the spread of their evil." After hearng that, Jeanine had walked out, dismissing the creepy Brit in tweed as a mental case, one that needed to be locked up pronto. 

But he followed her into the dark alley behind the club (it's included in all blueprints of clubs around America), and that's when she started to really get scared. Not because this Mark Craiven guy seemed to be stalking her, though. No, she was scared when monster with major need of a plastic surgeon and a really good dentist jumped out of the shadows and attacked her. 

Since she was a black belt in Tae-Kwon-Do and she was cornered anyway, she fought back quite well, only realizing after awhile that her pathetic moves weren't keeping any of the vampires at bay. Then Mark had pulled out a wooden stick and thrust it into one of the vampires' heart. Right before Jeanine's eyes, it turned to dust. 

"Don't you see?" Mark had told her after the vampires had fled in fear. "Don't you see what needs to be done?" 

So of course, after that spectacle, Jeanine came to accept that she was indeed the Slayer. She had trained, she had fought, she had won, she had lost. And she was miserable all the time in doing it. 

No friends, almost no family, and no life. Jeanine was depressed, sad, and above all, scornful. She hated her life as she knew it. 

And then one day, Jeanine had locked herself in a school bathroom stall and started to cry. She heard a knock on her stall door, and when she opened it, she saw Anya. At first she was wary of her, but the girl had seemed to genuine about wanting to help her with what was bothering her. So Jeanine told he everything, every insane and wacky detail, expecting Anya to call the little men in white to come and pick her up. 

But no, Anya had confessed *her* big secret, and after Jeanine got after the initial shock ("diet of *what*?"), Anya had told her to make a wish. So Jeanine did, closing her eyes real tight and wishing that she had never been the Slayer, and that some other girl had the job. 

Only seconds later, Jeanine had been transported to nice, friendly, and safe Sunnydale, CA. She had friends, family, a boyfriend, a car, and overall, a life. She was happy in this dimension--no longer was she faced with her Slayer fate. She was living her dream--to be a normal, teenage girl, who talked all day about boys and clothes and the occasional homework. 

So the other reason was that Anya was here to take back Jeanine's wish, returning her back to her old life. And Jeanine would rather die then go back to that living hell. 

Well, if she was going to find out which one, she sure as heck wasn't going to find it in the bathroom. If lightning rarely struck in the same place twice, she doubted that the Patron Diety of Scorned Women was any different. So Jeanine pulled herself together and walked back out to her locker. 

Just her luck: only a few lockers down stood Anya, listening to a girl who's back was turned to Jeanine. Who was that mystery girl? Jeanine took a deep breath, and walked slowly past the girls, sticking close to the other side of the lockered hall. 

The mystery girl was Cordelia Chase, recent leftover of her relationship with Xander Harris, the Loser of the School if there ever was one (although Jeanine was not one to judge). She held great pity for Cordelia: her father, who worked at Sunnydale General, had given her surgery after she was impaled. "What was she doing in that factory, anyway?" her father had asked over the dinner table, after ruining the family meal by telling all the gruesome details of teh operation. 

Suddenly, it clicked it Jeanine's mind. Anya was here to grant a scorned Cordelia's wish. What a relief! 

A small smile tugged at the corners of Jeanine's lips as she continued down the hall, looking back only once to check out the girl and the deity once more. She was happy for Cordelia: although the break-up was hard, she hoped that Cordelia would be happy with Anya's gift. 

She only wondered, though . . . 

What would Cordelia wish? 


End file.
